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And freedom for all...

This time it was an ear infection that got me to spend the weekend watching more Mad Men episodes than I am comfortable admitting.

Everyone in that world does things to feel things. The aim of their actions is to trigger specific feelings and no matter how dysfunctional it might look, it is always a quest for happiness.

Looking closer at my own actions I cannot find a single one that is not motivated by wanting to ’feel something’; feeling better, transforming a bad feeling, feeling more or feeling less.

I then remembered the Tibetan words lo jong, often translated as mind training. While the whole of the Buddhist path can be described as mind training, lo jong refers to a specific subset of practices that are designed to turn around the Mad Men paradigm. In these practices, we train our mind to feel a certain way in order to act a certain way. The idea is simple, the more feelings of love and compassion inhabit our minds, the more loving and compassionate our actions will turn out to be.

Whether we espouse these eastern philosophies or not, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could recruit our emotions to support us in whatever we truly want to do? Evolutionary speaking isn't it exactly what emotions are designed to do? Supporting us in what we are about to do?

Take anger, for example, it is nothing but a physiological transformation that prepares us to physically attack an opponent when the situation arises in which confrontation is unavoidable.

So what do you want to do next? What emotion would best help you to do that?